Engage auditors to ensure electoral integrity - Justice Kodie Oppong urges EC
The Director of the Ghana School of Law (GSL), Justice Barima Yaw Kodie Oppong, has suggested to the Electoral Commission (EC) to engage the services of auditors in this year’s election to ensure integrity in the process.
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With their involvement, he said parties involved, especially those who would not be successful, would have good reasons to accept the outcome graciously, convinced that the election was free and fair.
“After all, when there was a dispute in 2012 concerning that year's presidential election, was it not an auditing firm that was commissioned by the court to assist in determining some relevant issues?” he asked.
At this year’s Internal Auditors Conference in Accra last Wednesday, Justice Oppong, who is also the Mawerehene of Akyem Abuakwa, therefore, said it should not be out of place for auditors to inform the government and the EC that they were willing and ready to deploy members to all the constituencies to assist in the entire electoral process.
The conference, organised by the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), was on the theme: “Consolidating Democratic Governance and Accountability; Role of Internal Auditors”.
It brought together key stakeholders in the public sector accounting and internal audit space, as well as heads of public institutions, audit committees, finance officers and procurement officers, among others, to chart the way forward towards improving public sector internal audit performance.
It further provides an opportunity for the agency to update stakeholders on developments in the public sector internal audit space in addition to facilitating exchange of ideas, experiences and challenges facing internal auditors and audit committees.
Democratic governance
Justice Oppong, a Justice of the Court of Appeal, said internal auditors could also help consolidate democratic governance by safeguarding the integrity of duty-bearers such as the political actors and other persons through their audit reviews.
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He said Section 19 of the Internal Audit Agency Act, 2003 (Act 658) mandated internal auditors to perform their audit duties with honesty, diligence and absolute integrity.
The exhibition of integrity in the audit process, Justice Oppong said, also fuelled positive responses from auditors and duty-bearers and more importantly, political actors.
“Therefore, a lot more attention needs to be given to the work of the internal auditor if we want to prevent corruption and wickedness. We need to pay attention to the practice of internal audits in this country if we want to ensure the right distribution of the national resources,” he stressed.
Abuses
The Director-General of the IAA, Dr Eric Oduro Osae, also called on public sector operators and heads of institutions to stop the professional abuse of internal auditors.
He observed that in most institutions, once an internal auditor decided to stand his ground, he was either subjected to abuses or transferred.
“This must stop. Internal auditors are supposed to give you advice. You can write to them that you will not accept their advice, you don’t have to abuse them,” Dr Osei said.
He also called on the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission to take a second look at the statutes of all tertiary institutions.
Dr Osae said it had come to his attention that some of the provisions in the statutes of tertiary institutions did not align with the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (PFMA Act 921).
He gave an assurance that the IAA was going to work with the Ghana Audit Service to undertake a performance audit of the statutes of all public sector tertiary institutions, especially in the areas of internal operations and finance, to ensure that they aligned with the PFMA Act.
“So, I call on the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission to take the matter up and resolve them,” Dr Osae requested.